Too Many Republicans?
To THE EDITOR The last time I suggested the possibility that Dartmouth's selective system was not producing a politically representative group, I was restrained from advocacy because I was in Government service and from a strong expression of opinion because I was writing a class secretary's notes. Now I have neither restraint, so I want to take a stronger stand.
John Hersey, speaking of his Yale class of '36, says that "Yale is the mother of Republicans. Her loyal sons are desperately respectable." Few Yale men will protest that this is inaccurate or deplorable. Dartmouth, however, has a different tradition. It is, of course, entirely fitting and proper for lots of Dartmouth men to be Republicans. It is no longer surprising that almost all of them are. But is such a one party product fully consistent with a selective system that aims for a student body that is somewhat representative of the whole country? While a majority of the nation votes Democratic, should we expect the Dartmouth student and alumni body to be as overwhelmingly Republican as they have been these many years? Even more, should we not expect them to present an educated man's well reasoned grounds for Republican affiliation, more persuasive than those dished up by partisan newspapers for average readers?
I wonder if some important ingredient may not be missing from the process of choosing and educating the Dartmouth product that, if present, would tend to make him keep more abreast of those who are formulating our country's policies. There's no virtue, of course, in conformity just to be with the crowd. But how else can we judge whether the students are representative? And what judgment do you form of the product of an education who can give no better reasons for a change than what he can find in the editorial columns of the more rabid anti-administration press?
I do not speak from isolated experiences. During an intense reunion with my classmates and our neighbors of '31 and '33 last June I frankly and frequently invited reaction by stating that I both hoped and expected that the Democratic candidate, then unnamed, would be elected in November What a reaction! Not just from a majority, but almost unanimously they and their wives leaped to the fray. "You mean you're for that bunch of grafters?" "Are you for America or for Russia?" Etc., etc. They were even more incredulous when they discovered that I thought the Republicans wouldn't win. It was evident that they do not even get exposed to people who think differently and will say so. I was like some rare animal newly imported to the zoo.
Their preferences are probably of little consequence in themselves. What is more disturbing, though, is that they argued with such poisonous cliches. They all started out with graft, indicating a belief that the Democrats had made the Federal civil service "rotten from top to bottom." As an election issue it was as though I argued that the GOP is the party of crooked deals because of Teapot Dome.
Then the discussion would move on to the other theme: the secret Yalta agreements and Dean Acheson. I should rather have expected a well-educated man to question in his own mind whether there is anything we could do today with a secret agreement with the Soviet Union.
The attacks on Dean Acheson reminded me of a child's proclaimed dislike of a school teacher he hasn't met unreasoned adherence to a tradition. From college men this attitude is especially disquieting, for they above all should be proud that our democracy can present to the world a man who is well described as the college graduate's ideal in politics. I'll go further and from some personal observation say that Mr. Acheson embodies all that the Dartmouth tradition seeks for its product. I thought it a poor commentary on the Dartmouth experience that twenty years later almost to a man they could be sucked in by the efforts of the isolationist minority to find a scapegoat they could stick to. Let me say, of course, that, just as there are some Democrats in the group, there are some Republicans who can give some sound reasons for their stand. I never saw Tom Curtis '32, with knowledge gained in daily contact with the administration's representatives, at a loss for intelligent criticism.
I don't like to think that the reason for Dartmouth's solid Republicanism is an unavoidable reflection of the cost of four years at Hanover. If it is, let's build even more scholarship funds until papa's party will not even unconsciously be a factor in selection.
Maybe all this monoparty will pass anyway now that the Great Issues course is there to stir the thinking process more thoroughly into the educational mold. Perhaps we can hope that classes with twenty years between them and Great Issues will have not just a handful but a majority on the progressive bandwagon. They will join those who are charting new paths to peace and prosperity. They will also drop the delusion that troubles disappear if you go back to a past that is no more. They won't cry for a change for change's sake. We can be proud of the Dartmouth men in any party who already are real leaders of a thinking community. Let us have more to lead on the national scene and more who have the foresight to follow them.
Mr. Cardozo, former class secretary for 1932,was on the legal staff of the State Departmentuntil this fall, and is now Associate Professorof Law at Cornell University.
